


Remembrance; Aftermath

by ShadowSpires



Series: Remembrance [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, angst war, that should really be what you need to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 21:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12756786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: Jedi mind manipulation is rooted in the manipulation of a weak will. Cody's will is not weak. Sith magic is an entirely different brand of blaster, though. More insidious, more grasping and twisting. (Possible Ending #2)





	Remembrance; Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This is serving double duty as the second angsty alternate ending for the Remember Me prompt by Kristsune and as part of the Angst War with Arwen00710. Approach with caution.

Jedi mind manipulation is rooted in the manipulation of a weak will. The will of another lain over your own, convincing you that their desires were yours. If you are strong enough in your convictions, if your will and belief is strong enough, you can withstand it.

Cody’s will is not weak.

Sith magic is an entirely different brand of blaster, though. More insidious, more grasping and twisting.

But nothing, nothing is stronger within Cody than his loyalty. Loyalty to the Republic was a shattered and broken thing, destroyed by betrayal planted inside himself, held together by nothing but wisps of memories. Loyalty to his General had been stripped from him from beyond the reaches of his will, a chip planted in his brain, bypassing the input of will and thought, but now removed.

The complete overwriting of will and self by the biochip now sitting in a specimen jar was the only thing that successfully compelled Cody to fire on his beloved General. With that removed, the Sith magic – lain upon him as insurance against the survival of Kenobi but willing to turn him on any who tried to free him – stood alone against Cody’s will, unbolstered by the chip.

There is no loyalty in him stronger than his love for his riduur, and it cannot be twisted, like the loyalty for a republic turned empire.

“Riddur!” Rex’s voice comes to him as if through deep water, faint and distorted, slicing through the cold, but it comes, it provides the slim thread of a lifeline, a path for his will to forge along and he returns to himself with an outraged bellow, flinging the knife aside and howling his denial as he clutches his head and fights, driving the screaming dark from his brain.

“Cody?” Rex asks, and the hesitance in his husband’s voice is a wound. He flinches away from the touch to his cheek, but looks down to where his husband still lays beneath him.   

“Rex!” He dives forwards to press a firm hand to Rex’s throat, trying to stem the alarming amount of blood leaking from the slice along Rex’s neck. It’s not the gushing of an arterial wound, splattering copper across his face, but it’s bleeding too fast, too heavily anyway and _he did this._

Rex smiles up at him, and the happiness in the smile is blinding even as blood bubbles on his lips.

“Glad you’re…back with me, riduur.” His words come slow, and Cody’s punched out breath emerges as a wail.

“No, Rex! Stay with me! That’s an order, Captain! Rex, Rex! No! _Riduur_!”

~~~~

Captain Rex’s shuttle comes to a gentle landing on on the outskirts of the small country estate of a minor “cousin” that Bail had invented years ago. It was a useful fiction when he was younger and needed to escape the constant scrutiny of his position. Now, it is distanced enough from himself that his fledgling alliance can use it on occasion, and he’d offered it to Rex for the recovery of his friend. Commander Cody would be a wonderful addition, if he, like many of the other clones they have unchipped, wants to continue the fight.

Bail steps out to meet him as the gangway lowers, but his steps falter when he takes in the sight that greets him.

Cody walks down the ramp slowly, every step looking like it costs him everything he has. Yet he keeps coming.

Rex is cradled tenderly in his arms.

Bloody.

Limp.

Lifeless.

Bail must have made a sound, because Cody’s gaze swings up and fixes on him.

Bail has seen grief. He’s seen husbands and wives lose their children, each other. He’s seen orphans, and people who have lost everything in their lives that made it worth living.

He’s never looked into anyone’s eyes before and felt the grief there was so depthless that it threatened to suck him down with it, threatened the sanity of both of them.

He wonders if this was what Obi-Wan felt, when he looked into Anakin’s eyes and saw the Darth staring back at him.


End file.
